


Reckless

by sciencefictioness



Series: Unabashed [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Exhibitionism, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incest, M/M, Mutual Pining, They're Vague Sort Of Cousins, Violence, Voyeurism, do with that what you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-15 09:35:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17526254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: “A weapon protects the clan.  Weapons keep us safe. Weapons are useful.  What use are you, if you can’t protect us?”“None.”Sojiro’s irises flare brightly, and he pulls Kou higher; up onto his toes, until he’s barely touching the ground.“That’s right,” he says, and shoves Kou roughly backwards.  He falls, landing in a heap, looking up at Sojiro from the floor.  His jaw aches. There is blood trickling down his chin; over his collarbones, into his ragged gi.  One of his eyes is beginning to swell shut. Two of his fingers feel broken. “No use at all.”Then Sojiro is gone, and Genji leaps to his feet.  He brushes Kou’s hair out of his face with his good hand, and helps him sit up, the dragon on his right arm humming with power.“It wasn’t your fault,” Genji says emphatically, looking over his shoulder at Hanzo where he’s standing by the door.  “It wasn’t,” he hisses, like Hanzo needs convincing.  It isn’t that Hanzo doesn’t know better.  It’s that where Genji is furious, Hanzo is afraid, and rightfully so.No one stands against Sojiro for long.  Not if they want to keep standing.Kou keeps expecting Genji will learn, except he never does.





	1. Persistence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roughlycut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughlycut/gifts).



> By popular demand, we have this, a sequence of vaguely angsty events related to Unabashed/Shameless. Kou is not my OC, but [ myth's.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KRMalana/pseuds/KRMalana) I have taken some liberties with his character and backstory here, but you can [see](https://myth-and-mischief.tumblr.com/post/166677067676/ufficiosulretro-commission-for) [more details](https://myth-and-mischief.tumblr.com/post/155728896491/shepofshipsart-first-batch-of-sketch) about his [true design](https://myth-and-mischief.tumblr.com/post/157146625040/myth-and-mischief-overwatch-oc-kou) on myth's [ tumblr.](https://myth-and-mischief.tumblr.com/) I want to thank them again for letting me use their character to flesh out Unabashed, and continue the story here. I appreciate you, and hope I've done your boy at least some justice. 
> 
> I also want to thank Silas, for generally being awesome.
> 
> Please enjoy!

It isn’t his earliest memory from childhood, but it’s certainly one of the most vivid— lying in the floor of the dojo, the fresh taste of copper in his mouth, Sojiro looming over him.  

 

“Again,” he says, Kou’s blood streaked across his knuckles, eyes thrumming crimson.

 

Sojiro is terrifying enough on his own, but his dragons are brutal, merciless things, and even the wordless threat of them is enough that Kou’s hands want to shake. 

 

He’s not his uncle, precisely, but close enough.  That is what Kou calls him when he answers,  _ yes uncle,  _ and staggers to his feet.  Hanzo and Genji watch from one side of the room, both of them kneeling.  Hanzo looks at the floor in front of himself, spine rigid and jaw clenched.  Genji is next to him, his chin raised in quiet defiance, irises glowing faintly green.  There are tears tracking down his cheeks, but it does nothing to take away from the look on his face.  His angry mouth, his narrowed eyes.

 

Genji’s silent fury, even as he cradles one arm to his chest;  it’s broken, and badly, but Sojiro won’t let the doctors see to it until the three of them have been punished.

 

Until Kou has been punished, for allowing it to happen.

 

As soon as he’s upright Sojiro backhands him across face again.  Kou goes down like a ragdoll, swallowing the rush of fresh blood in his mouth.  The image of Genji spitting gore at Sojiro’s feet flits through his head, and Kou winces at the thought.  

 

“Get up,” Sojiro says, and Kou nods, and draws himself up on trembling limbs.  

 

He weaves in place for a moment, unsteady on his feet, and Sojiro’s hand closes around his jaw from underneath.  It’s huge, and Kou feels painfully small as Sojiro forces his chin up and holds his gaze.

 

“What are you?”  Sojiro asks. The words come out on their own.

 

“A sword,” he says, and Sojiro squeezes his jaw harder, until it’s difficult to breathe.

 

“A sword.  A shield. A fist.  You are a  _ weapon,  _ or you are nothing at all.  Do you understand?”

 

Kou can’t nod, not with Sojiro’s grip keeping him still, so he mumbles his answer through swollen lips.

 

“Yes, uncle.”

 

“A weapon protects the clan.  Weapons keep us safe. Weapons are useful.  What use are you, if you can’t protect us?”

 

Kou’s chest rises and falls too quickly to get enough air in his lungs.  He can feel his fingers quaking. He clenches them into fists, and blinks the sting from his eyes.

 

“None, uncle.”

 

Sojiro’s irises flare brightly, and he pulls Kou higher; up onto his toes, until he’s barely touching the ground.

 

“That’s right,” he says, and shoves Kou roughly backwards.  He falls, landing in a heap, looking up at Sojiro from the floor.  His jaw aches. There is blood trickling down his chin; over his collarbones, into his ragged gi.  One of his eyes is beginning to swell shut. Two of his fingers feel broken. “No use at all. You’d do well to remember that.”

 

Then Sojiro is gone, and Genji leaps to his feet; Hanzo grabs his arm,  _ Genji, no, don’t,  _ but Genji shrugs him off to kneel down next to Kou.  He brushes Kou’s hair out of his face with his good hand, and helps him sit up, the dragon on his right arm humming with power.  Kou can feel it in the air between them, the impotent rage, coiling like electricity with no way to ground.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Genji says emphatically, looking over his shoulder at Hanzo where he’s standing by the door.  “It  _ wasn’t,”  _ he hisses, like Hanzo needs convincing.  It isn’t that Hanzo doesn’t know better.

 

It’s that where Genji is furious, Hanzo is afraid, and rightfully so.

 

No one stands against Sojiro for long.

 

Not if they want to keep standing.

 

Kou keeps expecting Genji will learn, except he never does.

 

-

 

They are too young when it starts happening.  

 

It is, like most things in his life, Genji’s fault.

 

He stares at Kou too long, in a way that makes his stomach flip.  Lets his touch linger when they spar together. Pins Kou to the mats in the dojo, and holds him there, long after the fight is won.  Kou isn’t stupid. He knows what Genji wants. Knows he wants to give it to him.

 

Knows neither of them should want it at all.

 

Except it’s hard to tell Genji no at the best of times, let alone when he is bloody and bruised from Sojiro’s fists, crawling into Kou’s futon.  All shivery, voice shaking,  _ don’t make me sleep alone. _

 

_ Please. _

 

Kou holds him close, but when Genji leans in to press their lips together, he turns his face away.  It’s the first time, but not the last. Again, and again, stretching over the years, Genji never stops reaching.  He touches Kou’s face more gently than anyone ever has— not his mother who abandoned him, not the servants who raised him after Sojiro’s wife passed.  Genji’s mother is a distant memory, fond but hazy from the passage of time, something that only exists on the very edges of his awareness. 

 

Genji doesn’t belong to him. Not Genji’s fingertips tracing his mouth, flitting over his cheekbones, threading through his hair.  Not Genji’s arms around him, too much skin on skin, the violet of Kou’s koi tattoos shimmering underneath his palm. Not Genji’s voice telling him he’s beautiful, prettier than he has any right to be,  _ please Kou, I want you. _

 

Not even Genji can have everything he wants, and Kou was not built for this; softness, and heat, and the siren’s song of Genji’s kiss.

 

He is not made of steel, but he might as well be.  

 

He’d rather be a weapon at Genji’s side than nothing at all.

 

-

 

There are some things that aren’t Genji’s fault; like the way Kou forces him to bend until he is ready break.

 

Genji wants him, wants  _ him,  _ but Kou doesn’t give in and Genji still just  _ wants. _

 

They’re fifteen, and Genji’s sitting with arm around a girl at a karaoke bar, laughing brightly at something she said; leaning in to whisper in her ear, making her blush.

 

They’re sixteen and he’s snuck a boy into the castle, both of them drunk of stolen sake, smelling like cigarettes and breaking vases in the hall.  

 

They’re seventeen, and Genji has someone underneath him every night, except he never takes his eyes off Kou for long.  

 

Genji can’t have what he wants, so he takes what he can get, and makes Kou watch every step of the way.  Kou sits sieza in Genji’s floor as Genji eases his hands up girls’ skirts. Leans against alley walls while men take turns lifting Genji up by his thighs and fucking him into the bricks.  Stands guard in club bathrooms, listening to the wet sounds of someone sucking Genji off, his fingers in their hair as he praises them.  _ That’s perfect, just like that.  Beautiful, you’re beautiful.  _ Genji isn’t looking at them.  

 

He’s watching Kou watch him, eyes glowing violet, fingers tight around the hilt of his sword.

 

He’s long past envy, now.

 

Envy grew through his veins; filled up every inch of him, and then flowered into something more urgent.  More desperate.

 

Something that would eat him alive if he let it.  Want burns through Kou, volcanic and simmering, ready to erupt.  Genji isn’t doing it to be cruel.

 

This is all Kou will allow himself to have, and Genji gives it to him every chance he gets.  There isn’t always someone else. 

 

Sometimes they sit alone in Genji’s quarters, Genji’s training gi falling off his shoulders, knees thrown wide as he works his hand beneath his clothes,  _ no, stay. _

 

_ Don’t make me sleep alone. _

 

Pressed up against the fire that lives in Genji, even steel would fold.

 

-

 

They put Sojiro’s ashes in the ground, but he’s not gone in the way Genji expects.  

 

They put his ashes in the ground, and everyone is dutifully solemn.  Hanzo says all the right words. Genji keeps quiet, which is the most anyone expects of him.

 

Kou still has bruises around his throat from Sojiro’s fingers.  He stands silent and unmoving by Genji’s side, the rest of their crew fanned out behind them; not faceless clan soldiers, but Genji’s men.  Hanzo’s men.

 

They’re loyal to the heirs first, and the clan second.  The elders have been so busy currying Sojiro’s favor that they haven’t noticed Hanzo and Genji slowly taking all their best men, and claiming them as their own.  

 

They put his ashes in the ground, and Genji crawls into Kou’s futon that night like he hasn’t in ages, nosing into Kou’s throat.  Hands sliding under his shirt, mouthing messy kisses against his jaw, murmuring softly.  _ Let me, let me,  _ and Kou wraps his fingers around Genji’s wrists, and eases his hands away.

 

Kou thinks of his father.  Pictures him, grey haired and dark eyed, looking down at Kou where he stood over the body of an assassin; a rival clan member who’d snuck past the guards and into Genji’s room only to find Kou’s wakizashi buried in his throat.  His katana was still too big for him, too unwieldy, but it didn’t matter; he’d grow into it, eventually. 

 

With blood on his hands, and sprayed over his face, some nameless yakuza choking gore at his feet, Kou had grown into it already.  His body just needed to catch up.

 

His father had reached down and lifted his chin— Kou’s eyes alight, throwing shadows in the room.

 

_ You did well,  _ he said.

 

Then he left, and Kou never saw him again.

 

Kou thinks of Genji’s mother, foggy and surreal as always, her palm on his cheek.

 

_ You’ll look after him, won’t you?   _

 

His shoulder throbs where Sojiro dislocated it.  It’s a little hard to breathe, with ghosts of Sojiro’s hands there, wrapped around his neck.  He turns Genji over, and wraps his arms around him from behind, face tucked into his hair.  _ I can’t,  _ he says, and Genji shudders, voice breaking.  

 

_ You mean you won’t,  _ and Kou breathes in slow, and keeps his eyes closed to hide the light in them.

 

He cannot.  He will not.

 

He doesn’t understand the difference.

 

-

 

Genji doesn’t touch him anymore.  

 

They don’t spar together.  They don’t sleep together. 

 

The distance between them is cultivated, carefully maintained.  

 

He still watches Genji— Genji in his bed, Genji on his knees— but Genji doesn’t always look back anymore.  

 

Kou doesn’t realize just how much it’s killing him until they’re out on a job one night and Genji lays a palm on his chest, shoving him out of the way of a blade.  Kou shivers at the contact; has to stop, and breathe, spirits surging louder in his skin. Koi, not dragons. Not yet.

 

Not ever, probably, but they are vicious enough.  Hungry enough.

 

Desperate enough for Genji that they don’t easily settle, lighting up his eyes and sharpening his teeth.  Genji stares with his brows furrowed, head cocked to the side; smiles a little, like he knows what Kou is thinking, what he is feeling.

 

How much he wants to get Genji underneath him and just  _ take. _

 

Kou shakes his head, trying in vain to clear the fog from it.  They keep pushing forward.

 

Genji keeps on smiling.

 

-

 

Hanzo starts chasing an American black ops agent around the world as though he’s helpless to do anything else.  It’s bizarre, seeing him fixate on something outside the clan.

 

Seeing him smile when no one is under his heel bleeding.  

 

_ He’s obsessed,  _ Kou tells Genji, who rolls his eyes.

 

_ He’s in love,  _ Genji replies.  

 

It’s an accusation Genji is laying at his feet, and Kou shifts underneath it, and says nothing at all.

 

Kou respects Hanzo in ways he’s only ever feared Sojiro.  It isn’t difficult to follow Genji to Shanghai to look out for Hanzo’s soldier boy, even if he doesn’t really see the appeal.  He’s never really understood attraction— what made some people sexy, while others weren’t— and Hanzo’s broad, hulking cowboy is no different.  

 

Then again Kou has only ever wanted Genji.  There is something broken in him, buried under his skin.  

 

Something that has bound him to Genji, and refuses to be unraveled.

 

They clean up the mess Blackwatch has made, spirit Jesse and his crew off to a hotel.  Genji bats his eyelashes and bites his lip at them. Gives them that smile that used to belong to Kou, even when it was pointed at someone else— bright, and sultry, and Jesse’s squad is defenseless against it.  One of them picks Genji up like he’s weightless, and he laughs, overjoyed at being manhandled as always.

 

Genji catches Kou’s stare, and winks.  Kou can feel his eyes flare, his tattoos thrumming under his clothes.  Want runs white-hot through his blood, the bones in his hand aching as he grips his sword too tightly.  

 

Then Genji is gone, vanished behind a closed door.  

 

Kou blinks, and breathes, and forces it all away again.  

 

-

 

He ends up in Genji’s room later, summoned like the dog he’s become, sitting violet-eyed in a chair and staring, staring, staring as Jesse’s men take Genji from both sides.  It would be just another night in a string of hundreds, except Genji seems… different. Not simply eager, but strangely overwhelmed, especially by the larger of the two agents.  

 

Serafin keeps telling Genji he’s beautiful— that he tastes so good, feels so good, smells so good.  Cheap praise from someone they only met a few hours ago, but Genji is affected in ways Kou has never seen.

 

Something in the way the man says it.  The way he looks at Genji, all earnest affection and sincerity.  The way he touches him, like Genji will break under his hands and he needs to be gentle.  

 

Genji’s eyes light up, caught on Serafin like he can’t look away, hands clinging like he can’t let go.  

 

Lost like he’s only ever been in Kou’s arms.

 

Kou has spent most of his life taking beatings.  Sojiro’s fists in his face. Enemy knives between his ribs.  Punctured lungs, fractured skull, shattered bones.

 

None of it has ever hurt like this, and Kou watches, and breathes, and  _ aches. _

 

-

 

Talon comes.  

 

Kou is ready; is always ready, his sword a constant ghost in his palm, spirits churning and hungry in his chest.  

 

Except there are far too many mercenaries.  It takes Hanzo’s foolish cowboy and his ridiculous gun and the eerie red of his eye to save them all.  It rankles, but Kou pushes past it and does his job. Keeps Genji safe. 

 

Obeys, and wonders if he’s ever had a will of his own.  If he has always been this way, mindless and subservient.

 

If it’s something Sojiro beat into him, blow by blow.

 

He doesn’t notice when it happens, precisely— the exact moment that Hanzo gives up on the clan.  Sloughs it off like an old skin he’s outgrown, expecting Kou to pick up the pieces. 

 

Kou just calls his spirits, and there are no sleek, iridescent fins, or ephemeral water dripping into nothingness.  Not koi anymore, but dragons. Kou looks at the carnage all around him, dead bodies twitching at his feet; enemies brought into their home by the elders to kill Hanzo and Genji.  Their own soldiers. 

 

Hanzo stares off into the distance, a thousand miles away.  Genji wipes gore off his sword. Pulls a shuriken out of someone’s throat with a wet, sickening pop, firelight humming brighter a few dozen yards off.

 

This is his mountaintop, blood-soaked and burning.  

 

All Kou wants is to give it back.

 

-

 

Genji leaves.

 

Genji  _ leaves,  _ like he’s not Kou’s whole fucking world.

 

Like he’s not reaching into Kou’s chest, and ripping out his heart.

 

_ You don’t need me here. _

 

Genji is so wrong that Kou doesn’t know where to start.  He kisses Kou’s cheek, eyes shining bright— wet with tears, and one slips down his face before he wipes it away with the heel of his hand.

 

No one needs Genji like he does.  Not some handful of spec-ops agents, not Hanzo, not the clan.  He thinks of Serafin, and all his soft words and reverent touches.  Kou can’t say those things; they stick in his mouth, until it hurts to swallow them.

 

Genji knows he’s beautiful.  Knows he’s strong. Knows he’s perfect.  Needs to hear it, evidently. Needs someone to prove it to him, quietly, gently.

 

The hunger that’s been sown in Kou is long past gentleness.   

 

He can only starve, or eat Genji alive. 

 

Genji goes, and Kou stays, spending his days with what’s left of Hanzo.  It isn’t much— the scent of sake, heavy sighs. Longing that hurts to look at, because it feels like a mirror, and Kou doesn’t like to see himself reflected there.

 

Weeks, then months,  _ how long are you going to wait, Hanzo? _

 

Hanzo doesn’t answer, but Kou can see it plainly enough.  

 

_ How long would I wait for Genji,  _ he wonders.

 

_ As long as it takes. _

 

His cowboy comes, Hanzo’s dragons etched into the metal of his arm, so much love in his eyes it makes Kou want to retch.  They leave Hanamura, but Kou only stays with them long enough to be sure they can make it out of Japan on their own. Jesse is absurd in some ways, but he’s skilled, and intelligent.  

 

They don’t need him any more than Genji does, and so he slips out in the night, and leaves them to their peace.

 

All his life he served the clan.  Gave them his blood. Gave up the things he wanted;  to be a good soldier.

 

To be a good son.

 

Now Hanzo and Genji have cast their legacy aside like so much trash, and all the wounds Kou has suffered throughout the years throb in his skin, phantom pains he cannot shake.  He’s fought for nothing. Bled for nothing.

 

_ I can’t, Genji, I can’t. _

 

Genji’s fingers in his hair and Genji’s mouth on his skin and Genji’s teeth in his throat are worth more than the clan has ever been, and Kou is a fool to have refused him.

 

Now he’s gone, and Kou’s yearning mingles with a vicious sort of fury that grows with each passing day.

 

Genji’s hands on his face, eyes wide and earnest,  _ don’t leave me alone. _

 

Genji left him behind to chase strangers around the world, and Kou grinds his teeth, and makes a fist.

 

He deserves more than this.  The clan in ruins, Hanzo in the wind, Genji trailing after some foolish soldier.  He can feel his dragons, pulsing eager in his skin.

 

Just as hungry for Genji as Kou has always been, and ready to climb mountains.


	2. Due

Chasing Genji is like chasing smoke.

 

Kou finds campfires with smoldering embers, but the flame he seeks is long gone, time and time again.  He follows Genji’s money in the beginning— accounts the clan never knew about, Kou traipsing back and forth across Europe with nothing more than hacked banking information and grainy ATM footage.  Kou spends a lot of late nights on his laptop, sifting through intel he’s paid far too much for, grasping at straws. Most of his leads are useless at first; too little, too late, but eventually things begin to fall into place for him.  It’s only a matter of time.

 

Kou knows Genji better than Genji knows himself.

 

As he closes the distance between them Kou stops following paper trails and starts following blood.

 

He comes across a handful of mangled Talon agents being mopped up by Interpol.  Some stray clan assassins shoved in a dumpster, puzzled over by the police. Mercenaries and local criminals, some of them in pieces, all of them worse for wear.  There’s a path of quiet carnage running through Mediterranean— violence that no one seems to witness firsthand. They come across it later, frown, and scratch their heads.  Nobody sees the bigger picture.

 

Nobody but Kou, and it’s a balmy summer night in Thessaloniki when he finally lays eyes on his prey.

 

Kou is on a rooftop peering through binoculars at a run-down apartment building close to the water.  He can hear waves crashing, the rhythmic lull of the sea making him drowsy. His contact’s facial recognition software has picked up several possible matches in the surrounding area based on the pictures Kou provided of Genji and Jesse’s squad; it isn’t the first time it’s happened, but it’s the first time Kou has been close enough to investigate himself.  Even so, he doesn’t get his hopes up. 

 

Kou runs, and runs, and runs; reaches and comes up empty.  

 

His dragons are trying to pull him somewhere, but Kou does his best to ignore them;  they are always pulling, and it always leads him nowhere. It’s a constant tug down in his guts, like strings tied around his bones, and no matter how far he goes it never ends.  Kou resists the drag almost effortlessly, now, much to his dragons exasperation.

 

He’s been resisting Genji all his life, and his dragons’ wordless pleas pale in comparison.

 

People come and go on the sidewalk, the streets underneath him bustling with activity, but so far nothing of interest.  Locals going about their daily life, cars flying past. There’s a stray cat on the roof with him, watching Kou warily from a few feet away, giving an occasional plaintive meow.  He flares his eyes at it, and it blinks at him slowly, unimpressed. Thunder rumbles in the distance, a storm brewing on the horizon, the scent of rain already thick in the air. Clouds roll ominously out over the waves; they blot out some of the stars, creeping in towards the shoreline.

 

He glances through his binoculars again, letting them rove over the apartment building, when movement catches his eye.  His heart stutters, breath seizing in his chest.

 

Genji is on one of the balconies on the second floor, barefooted and smoking a cigarette.  His hair is black, now, wet from a recent shower and falling in his eyes. Ink dark, like it’s freshly dyed.

 

Kou thinks of how Genji’s hair feels under his fingers; thinks of black latex gloves stained green, and the sharp smell of chemicals in his nose.  Thinks of someone else doing it— pouring black over bright neon, working the color into the strands— and clenches his jaw. 

 

Genji is shirtless, lifting his cigarette to his lips and taking a drag, leaning forward with his forearms on the balcony railing.  Kou watches the cherry flare up in the dimness; even from this distance he can tell Genji has new scars. There are some on his face, and his ribs.  Cut into the curve of his shoulder, slashing through one of his eyebrows.

 

Someone hurt him, and Kou wasn’t there to stop them.

 

Kou’s dragons come to life in his skin, roaring and euphoric; that pull he’s been feeling doubles, triples, and suddenly it’s hard to stay in place.

 

They want to carry Kou forward.  To bring him to Genji.

 

To eat him alive.

 

Genji’s smiling, yelling at someone on the sidewalk, hands moving in haphazard signs.  Serafin and the others are down there, emerging from the main entrance of the apartments, Josiah shoving playfully at V.  The three of them cluster together, Sera signing back at Genji before they head up the block. Genji watches them go, knee bent as he uses the toes of one foot to scratch at his calf.  He lets his eyes rove over his surroundings, and for a moment Kou thinks he’s been caught. Genji is looking right at him, and there is the faintest flare of green in his eyes, but then he glances away like it’s nothing at all.  He finishes his cigarette and flicks it out towards the street. 

 

Then he vanishes into the apartment through a sliding glass door that he doesn’t bother closing all the way, and it’s an invitation if Kou has ever seen one, even if Genji doesn’t realize.

 

Kou turns his head and watches Serafin, V, and Josiah disappear around the corner up the block, and packs away his things.  Genji is alone, and the time for watching has passed.

 

It is time to act.

 

-

 

He leaves his weapons behind, tucked away where they won’t be found.  It’s not like he’s going to need them. There isn’t any Talon or Overwatch activity anywhere in Greece right now, and it’s been weeks since he ran across clan assassins.  

 

Kou and Genji and his Blackwatch crew are the biggest threats for hundreds of miles, as far as he knows.

 

It’s troublingly easy to wait until no one is nearby and scale the side of the building.  Kou gives a brief glance around once he lands on Genji’s balcony, but the street is empty; quiet other than the noise of traffic, the sound of the ocean, the faraway bustle of the city.  He looks over to the rooftop where he’d been a few moments ago; the stray cat is up on the ledge watching him. Kou flares his eyes again, and it looks almost indignant, stretching deliberately before dropping out of sight.

 

There’s music playing from inside the apartment.  Gauzy curtains are blowing out through the crack in the glass door.  Kou eases his hand into the opening and pushes it wider; slowly, inch by inch.  He doesn’t think there is anyone inside other than Genji— his dragons would let him know, and there is no real reason to keep quiet— but he’s been an assassin for so long that the stealth is hard to shake.

 

When the door is wide enough he slips inside, ducking under the curtains and taking a few hesitant steps into the living room.  It looks more like a hotel than anything else— bland, unremarkable furniture. Boring landscapes framed on the wall. Institutional off-white paint.  There are bags everywhere in various states of unpacked, including one shoved into a corner that is absolutely full of weapons. Clothes are scattered on the furniture.  A laptop sits on the bar that separates the kitchen from the rest of the room.

 

Genji isn’t anywhere to be seen.  Kou swallows around the tightness in his throat, reaching up to tug off the black mask he’s wearing over his mouth and call out when there is a rush of movement beside him.

 

Inhumanly fast.  

 

It can only be Genji.

 

His legs are swept from underneath him all at once, and it’s only decades of training that keep him from going down in a heap.  Kou catches himself and rolls to his feet, arms already rising to block strikes he hasn’t consciously registered. Muscle memory.  Kou, fighting like he’s sleepwalking, barely aware of what he’s doing.

 

Then Genji’s fists are flying faster, and it’s all Kou can do to keep up; he shouldn’t be surprised.  

 

Genji has been on the run, too, up against more than just the odd yakuza that Kou has found himself faced with in his travels.  Blackwatch, Overwatch, Interpol. Talon, maybe, depending on how much of a priority they consider Jesse’s team now. It’s only natural that he is on guard,  waiting for a threat and ready to react. Kou dodges out of the way of a high kick, knocking over an end table and sending a lamp clattering to the floor.

 

“Genji!” 

 

It’s muffled through his mask, but loud enough that Genji can hear.  Kou expects him to stop. To hesitate, and back off. He doesn’t.

 

Genji responds by grabbing fistfulls of his shirt and physically throwing him off balance, following up with a brutal shove.  Kou stumbles, and then Genji is on him, grappling him into the floor. 

 

It’s been a long time, but sparring with Genji is second nature, and it’s not something Kou can forget.  Genji straddles him, right hand falling like a hammer to land an open palmed strike against Kou’s face. Kou moves his head just in time, bucking underneath Genji just enough that he can roll them.  He’s trying to snatch Genji’s wrists, trying to keep him still, but that’s just as impossible as it’s always been.

 

He’s only got Genji on his back for a moment before Genji reverses the position again, and then they’re scrabbling across the floor together; knocking over barstools, breaking glass.  Both of them are breathing hard, letting out pained huffs when someone lands a blow. Genji keeps trying to sink in choke holds, and it takes all of Kou’s focus to stay out of them. 

 

Kou isn’t sure why Genji’s fighting.  His eyes are lit up violet, and this close, there’s no mistaking who he is now, even without a dragon roaring in Genji’s ears.  

 

He’s fighting for the same reason Kou is, probably.

 

It’s all he knows how to do.  He isn’t sure how to stop.

 

Eventually Genji gets him pinned, left knee holding down Kou’s right arm, right hand pressing his left wrist against the floor above his head.  Genji’s panting, sweat shining on his chest, making his tattoo glimmer in the low light. He smiles, reaching to run his fingers through Kou’s hair.

 

“Missed you, cousin.  What took you so long?”

 

Genji looks so fucking smug, like he’s been waiting for this all along.  Like he knew Kou would come running, trailing after him across the world.  He’s grinning wide and his hand in Kou’s hair feels so good and Genji’s weight on his chest is like home.

 

Kou rolls them again.  When he pins Genji’s wrists with a snarl, Genji throws his head back and laughs, delighted.  He’s loose underneath Kou, boneless, looking up at him from under his lashes. Bright-eyed. Beautiful. 

 

Kou cradles Genji’s face between his palms, leans down, and kisses him.

 

Kou has never kissed anyone before, not like this, and it is so much more than he expected.  Instantly addictive.

 

Revelatory.

 

Genji’s eyes are wide open, and he makes a startled noise against Kou’s mouth, lifting up into the kiss.  One of his palms hovers in the air over Kou’s cheek. Kou watches his eyes flutter shut, and Genji whines, and kisses back.  It’s perfect. Everything Kou has needed, all this time.

 

Only for a moment.

 

Then Genji breaks away like it hurts, his hand on Kou’s collarbones, holding him off.

 

“I need you to mean it,” Genji says, breathy and soft.  His irises are flickering. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You can’t take it back.”  

 

Kou’s thumbs are on Genji’s cheekbones, his fingers in Genji’s hair.  His brows furrow in confusion.

 

Genji is all he has, and all he is, and all he knows.

 

Genji is everything, and he damn well knows it.

 

“I have always meant it,” he says.  Hisses, like it’s something profane.

 

An accusation he’s laying at Genji feet, and Genji moans, and brings their lips together.  He wraps his arms around Kou’s waist, hands sliding under his shirt, fingers flitting over scars he already knows by heart.  He arches into Kou, legs tangling, tongue spilling into Kou’s mouth.

 

Kou hadn’t realized how starved he was for Genji’s touch until now.  He’s trembling, and it’s not from arousal, even though he’s hard and grinding into Genji’s hips in frantic, jerky thrusts.  Genji’s in his arms. Kissing him, making whimpering sounds, shoving into Kou like he could get closer. Kou has never done this before; always watching, never taking.

 

It’s what Kou has wanted since Genji first crawled into his bed, and that he is allowed to have it now is enough to have him coming in his clothes.  Oversensitive, overstimulated, twitching out his orgasm as Genji scratches lines down his back. His vision whites out, and his ears ring, Kou’s whole body gone tight.  It takes Genji a moment to realize what’s happened, and Kou waits for him to laugh. To grin, to tease.

 

It isn’t his fault that being with Genji is like nothing he’s ever felt before, but the teasing never comes.  Genji just keeps touching him, kisses trailing from his mouth over his jaw, until he’s murmuring into the skin of Kou’s throat.

 

“You… you can still fuck me, right?  We… we can wait a little while, and then you can fuck me.  Please, Kou.” It’s desperate like Kou hasn’t heard in years.

 

It’s been a long time since he’s heard Genji beg, and it sounds so much sweeter, knowing he can give him everything he needs.  

 

Kou nods, fast and hard, already slipping Genji’s pajama pants off his hips and shoving them down his thighs.  Genji helps as best he can, kicking gracelessly until they’re dangling off one ankle.

 

Then Kou pulls Genji’s thighs wide, and prowls down his body.  

 

Noses under his balls, and presses his face between Genji’s cheeks with a growl.  He licks into him, tongue circling, and laving.

 

Kou may be a virgin, but he has been watching Genji long enough, and he knows all too well what to do to break Genji into pieces.  Genji jerks, fingers sinking into Kou’s hair as swears through gritted teeth and ruts down into his mouth. Kou curls his arms around Genji’s thighs to hold him in place, and doesn’t even try to fight the way his eyes light up.  The noises he makes, gasping little whines— Genji tastes so good, and he’s writhing under Kou’s mouth, pleading incoherently.

 

All these years.  Thousands of miles.

 

This,  _ this  _ is his mountaintop.  Not Hanamura, with the Shimada clan crumbling into nothing, haunting the castle with Hanzo’s ghost.

 

It’s Genji falling apart for him, so, so easily.

 

Kou doesn’t waste time.  There will be enough of it later to savor this, to use every dirty trick he’s learned kneeling at Genji’s bedside against him, but right now there’s a merciless urgency swallowing him whole.  He works a finger into Genji alongside his tongue, then another, reveling in the way Genji’s thighs are quaking, how he can’t keep still.

 

Genji is begging in earnest, then,  _ please Kou, now, please,  _ and it would take something stronger than steel to stand against it.

 

Kou folds, folds, folds, and presses into him with a whine, teeth finding purchase on Genji’s throat like he’s trying to hold himself in place.  Genji makes a noise that Kou has only ever heard in an entirely different context. When Genji is taking a knife to the side, or a blow to the face.

 

A wounded sound.

 

Kou slips an arm around the small of his back.  Tugs Genji’s spine into an arch, and fucks into him hard, pulling Genji down onto his cock as he sets a frantic pace.  The tile is unforgiving under his knees, but Kou doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop. Keeps going, ignoring the sharp ache of it as he ruts forward again and again.  Kou releases the bite he’s been holding and slides his mouth up to Genji’s. 

 

When he kisses him again, Genji comes— open mouthed, body stretched taut, slick smearing warm and messy between them.  Kou fucks him through it, slowing down as the tension drains out of Genji to leave him loose-limbed and pliant. Genji blinks his eyes open, and smiles wide, palms finding Kou’s cheeks as he presses a wet, swollen kiss to his lips.

 

“Keep going,” he says, as though Kou has any choice in the matter.

 

This is all he can do.

 

Kou doesn’t know how to stop.

 

-

 

Serafin and the others come home to find Kou and Genji half-asleep, curled up in bed with the covers pulled high.  None of them look surprised to see him there. They’ve brought back food for two, like it was a given he’d be there with an appetite when they returned.

 

Kou glares, and Genji grins.

 

Signs  _ I love you,  _ and Kou tucks his face into Genji’s throat to hide his blush, and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me nice things, I hope you enjoyed <3

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me nice things <3 Or yell at me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/scifictioness?lang=en)


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